Monthly Archives: August 2010

Post navigation

I’ve been playing this new, fun, ultra exciting game on my Facebook page but it’s time to bring it here to Creative Greenius for everyone to enjoy.

In “Greenius Connects-the-Dots-For You” I’ll do the job your newspapers, TV and radio never do. I’ll bring you news each day that connects yet another Hot Dot. What’s a Hot Dot? Nothing but a little old tipping point on our way to the coming climate catastrophe everyone is so looking forward to.

With school starting up again it’s easy to remember what an exciting and terrifying time this is for high school freshmen making the giant leap from middle school to the intimidating and initially confusing big-time campus.

With a history going back 105 years and an outstanding reputation in academics, robotics, journalism, band and so many other areas it is a very cool thing indeed to be a new Sea Hawk joining the other 2,294 RUHS students.

But there’s another high school in the area that Redondo Beach students are also eligible to attend that few even know about, let alone consider applying for. At first glance you might think I’m nuts to even suggest it: I don’t think any Redondo Beach resident has ever opted to attend, although kids from Lennox, Inglewood, Hawthorne, Gardena, Bellflower, Maywood, Carson and Lawndale have.

Even though we took care of 800 to 1,000 bicycles per day over Memorial Day weekend, and made visiting the Fiesta a no-hassle, groovy good time for all those riders, we’re not satisfied.

We are now looking to park three times that many bikes each day over Labor Day weekend. Imagine us taking 7,000 to 9,000 cars off the roads over those three days and replacing them with bicycle riders.

After eight months of working directly with Mayor Michael DiVirgilio to introduce and launch the Carbon Neutral City initiative, I stepped aside two weeks ago to focus more on the surrounding South Bay communities and to play a different role in Hermosa.

My pal, Jenny Binstock, one of L.A.’s tireless environmental champions has been relentlessly pursuing this issue and was featured in a Greenpeace video from just two weeks ago talking to regular folks at the farmers market. All she’s trying to do is prevent a toxic nightmare right here in our own backyard… Check it out:

If that doesn’t move you to take some action of your own, listen to what this nursing student has to say about how the local medical community would be able to handle a medical emergency in the L.A. area if we had a chemical disaster:

In June I was interviewed by Rodrigo Padilla of The Green Show produced by Lawndale’s Environmental Charter High School and talked about my volunteer work with the South Bay Environmental Services Center and my other environmental activism.

It’s a sad comment on our society that we have a permanent homeless population of people who live on the streets, reduced to scrounging their way through trash bins and dumpsters each day to survive.

Many of them have serious disabilities of one kind or another, or addictions, or have simply fallen through the people-sized holes in the safety net we all hope catches any of us if we slip off the high wire we balance on.

Like the man says, “there but for the grace of God go I,” and it is with no small measure of compassion that I approach the subject of whether it’s right or wrong for homeless people to take the cans and bottles from a homeowner’s or the city’s recycle bins.

I really appreciated the approach he took and the fact that he didn’t get hung up on either protocol — as the President of AES Southland he certainly could have easily ignored me — or on the fact that I had disparaging things to say about the look of the power plant and its carbon footprint.

Last week, he took me up on my offer to buy him a cup of coffee at the location of his choice, and we met for a face-to-face conversation at Catalina Coffee Company.

Page Hits Since August 08

The Creative Greenius

Welcome to Creative Greenius.
My name is Joe Galliani and I've been blogging as the Creative Greenius since October of 2007. I'm responsible for what you read here and I stand behind everything I write. I offer A Brighter Shade of Green that includes reporting, analysis, opinion, commentary and policy advisement.